Cotton: Foremost Fiber of the World
the heat and pressure
of 5,000 pounds to the
square inch.
Queen of the Cotton
Wonderland is this pro
tean kernel. Literally it
gets into shoes (as
finishing), ships (as
pitch), sealing wax
(as an emulsion), and
cabbages (as fertilizer).
And the "fine linen"
of Biblical kings has
been translated "cloth"
in revised versions of
the Scriptures because
it is suspect of having
been cotton.
The cake and meal
of the kernel may be
destined as food for
horses, hogs, and poul
try, as well as soil reju
venator, and also as
table crackers and
birthday cakes.
But the end product,
cotton crude oil, is the
chemical genie which
outsmarts the Alice of
any fictional wonder
world. With it they
make bread spread and
soap, auto cup grease
and piecrust, oil to
pack sardines and to
emulsify medicine, cos
metics, and roofing tar.
There is no problem
surplus in cottonseed
and linters; there have
been times within the
year when supplies
were only a few weeks
ahead of demand.
1'hotograpn by II. 1. C. Melville
A Little Cotton Goes a Long Way in an Arawak Costume
Near this British Guiana matron's home are cotton plants ten feet tall, from
which she collects seeds when the bolls burst. After removing the lint by hand,
she pulls it into long, loose strands. Then she winds a strand around her left
wrist, fastens the other end to a small spindle which she revolves by rolling it
rapidly with her right hand downward along her right thigh. From the thread
she may make binding for arrow shafts, aprons, loin cloths, or hammocks.
"The day may come when we will be raising
cotton for the seed, and the lint will be a
by-product," remarked one cotton economist.*
It's a long, long trail sometimes that cotton
* Early in November, 1940, a farmer who took his
raw cotton to the gin would have received 9.35 cents
a pound for his lint, and a fraction over one cent for
his seed with linters attached. However, the larger
grower, by delinting and crushing his own seed, re
ceived for the oil 4.75 cents a pound, 1.4 cents for
the meal, 4.24 cents for the linters, and slightly less
than half a cent for the hulls. Should raw cotton's
price level cease being pegged by government loans,
and seed product prices continue to rise, a 500-pound
bale of lint may bring less than the 900 pounds of
seed removed therefrom.
winds. Mountain men of our Carolinas set
tled scores of made-to-order mill towns to
furnish fibers for English looms. Thence tons
of woven fabric normally flow to India so
swarthy natives may wear cool garments to
work with the jute that the United States
buys to wrap more cotton bales to ship abroad.
Now, with war threatening this cotton-jute
circuit, a New Orleans factory turned out
last year a million cotton wrappings, or pat
terns, to encase cotton bales (page 148).
On a map of the United States continue the
line between Virginia and North Carolina
straight west to the region of sky-blue Mon-